15 Best Enterprise Loyalty Software for 2023

Enterprise architecture requires a customizable, flexible, and stable loyalty solution. As the demand for cloud-based deployments increases, the market for loyalty software solutions is booming, with small-scale SaaS modular platforms entering the market thus far run by monolithic loyalty giants.

As an enterprise buyer, you have multiple dependencies to manage and requirements to meet. With this article, I will compare some of the most popular loyalty solutions for enterprises to give you a better idea of which better suits your business needs.

What is loyalty program software?

Loyalty management software is a technology that allows businesses to:

• Identify loyal customers and enrol them in a loyalty program.
• Collect first-party customer data.
• Customize the program logic, rewards, and levels based on customer behavior and preferences.
• Monitor interactions between members and the program.

Loyalty management software for enterprises

Loyalty platforms come in all shapes and sizes. However, to be the perfect enterprise fit, first, they need to meet requirements popular among enterprises. Some of them may include:

• Ability to collect first and zero-party data.
• Custom implementations with CRMs, IMS, POS, and more.
• Priority support and dedicated Integration Engineers.
• Dedicated clusters and servers for the best performance possible and data isolation.
• Account security and approval workflows endured by GDPR, ISO & CCPA compliance.

The most common issues that enterprise face when managing a loyalty program are as follows:

• Inefficient data management — secure consolidation of data from multiple sources is necessary for all global businesses.
• Program security — the adoption of new marketing tools is often hindered by privacy issues. Enterprise organizations are more likely to fall prey to data branches which makes them more reserved towards launching loyalty-related projects.
• Lack of personalization — brands struggle with personalizing experiences based on customer behavior. Instead, enterprises often settle for no personalization or point-centric programs with default reward actions (e.g., placing an order).
• Low adoption of mobile-first loyalty — thanks to mobile loyalty programs, brands can gain customer-specific behavioral data, but the implementation may be timely and costly if planned wrong.
• Lack of consistency — enterprises need to look for cross-channel solutions that can feed information into multiple channels and implement new ones.

Most of these issues are caused by the lack of development talent, time, and resources. To build cross-channel loyalty experiences, all data points need to be integrated which can be resource-intensive. This heavy load can be reduced by dedicated loyalty software. Below you will find a list of the most popular loyalty solutions for enterprise clients.

15 Most Popular Enterprise Loyalty Solutions

1. Oracle CrowdTwist
2. Comarch Loyalty
3. Arvato
4. SessionM (Mastercard)
5. Epsilon
6. Kobie
7. Fielo (Salesforce)
8. Cheetah Digital
9. AnnexCloud
10. Emarsys
11. White Label Loyalty
12. Antavo Loyalty
13. Voucherify
14. Talon.One
15. OpenLoyalty

Oracle CrowdTwist Loyalty and Engagement

“Great partners, strategic, know the loyalty space and are always willing to make roadmap changes on their product.” — Mark F. via G2

CrowdTwist is one of the new additions to Oracle’s long list of services, a global leader in IT solutions. CrowdTwist loyalty module works best when combined with other Oracle products and services, including Oracle Responsys (campaign management) and Oracle CX Unity (business intelligence). As a monolithic service, Oracle CrowdTwist is the opposite of a plug-and-play solution, increasing not only the customization possibilities but also, sadly, the development cost.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Cross-channel capabilities — with Oracle, clients can gather first-party data through any touchpoint (web, mobile, in-store, social media, kiosks, and more) and implement the program into any device.
• Household accounts — with Oracle CrowdTwist, loyalty members can share points with their family and friends to redeem rewards and access rewards faster.
• Gamification — users can offer points for any kind of engagement (with frequency caps). The platform provides brand-specific quizzes, polls, and surveys for maximum engagement and zero-party data collection.

Comarch Loyalty Marketing

“We have found Comarch to be a great partner both from a development perspective and a strategic direction perspective. Their ability to ramp up and resource projects and initiatives have been very impressive. We have never had any regrets in choosing Comarch, and we look forward to a long and innovative relationship.” — Jet Blue testimonial

Comarch is a global provider of IT solutions working with the world’s most recognizable brands (BP, Carrefour, Costa Coffee). Following the cloud revolution, in 2020, Comarch launched the Loyalty Cloud — a new, cloud-based platform that allows users to design, run, and manage loyalty programs with minimal effort. Enterprise clients can choose between a standard, on-premise dedicated loyalty solution or opt for a pay-as-you-go model hosted in the cloud.

As a monolithic service, Comarch offers loyalty solutions tailored to clients’ needs which means that each client operates on a different software version and requires individual support. This kind of setup means that any version upgrade requires a new agreement which may prolong the implementation time and hinder the development.

Enterprise features highlights:

• AI & ML-based technologies — with Comarch, customers can identify customer behavior and personalize offers to deliver more relevant loyalty incentives.
• Location services — thanks to beacon technology, users can collect location data from customers to offer timely messaging.
• White-label mobile app — Comarch offers the development of a custom loyalty mobile app.

Arvato Loyalty Management

Arvato is yet another heavy-weight loyalty champion that provides enterprises with the right CRM systems and integrated solutions (including loyalty) custom-tailored to business-specific challenges. As a full-service partner, Arvato delivers comprehensive loyalty solutions from scratch and integrates them into current customer-facing applications and systems. As a monolithic service, the cost of using Arvato’s services is quite high and requires a strict contract, which may limit their clients’ flexibility to respond to new market challenges.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Ready CRM solutions — Arvato has extensive experience in building custom CRM solutions on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP CRM, Salesforce, or Spryker.
• Complete support — Arvato supports clients with consulting, reward management, direct marketing to loyalty program members, promotional activities and individualization of products.

SessionM (Mastercard)

“Questions are followed up accurately and on time. I would like SessionM to make more suggestions to businesses on how to run loyalty from their experience. Overall good team and very good loyalty platform” — Marketing Technology Director via Gartner

SessionM is a Mastercard company that delivers cloud-based customer engagement and data management solutions, including loyalty programs. Thanks to its data management component, SessionM can pull and merge customer data from different touchpoints through real-time APIs to create a single, 360-degree customer view. Their pricing is hidden. However, it can be estimated that the average platform cost starts at $20,000 per 1 million active profiles per month.

Enterprise features highlights:

• ROI measurement — SessionM helps clients forecast and measure the ROI to see the potential value of introducing a loyalty program, while simultaneously highlighting the drivers of value creation.
• Salesforce integration — SessionM integrates with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, and DMP allowing clients to merge cross-cloud data together.

Epsilon PeopleCloud

“We were able to launch a loyalty program in a few short months. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without Epsilon and the partnership we’ve built.” — Kelly Smolinski, Customer Systems at Walgreens

EpsilonPeopleCloud is a global marketing platform used by global enterprises to personalize customer journeys and anticipate measurable business outcomes with a range of marketing tools, including loyalty programs. By delivering custom loyalty solutions, Epsilon is ready to cover both basic and complex loyalty strategies, however, this level of customization can come at a steep price.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Core ID Technology — Epsilon allows clients to build accurate customer profiles based on their AI and machine learning algorithms.
• Loyalty essentials — to minimize upfront costs, Epsilon provides ready loyalty templates that midsized brands can use to achieve enterprise-level growth quickly.
• Strategic consultation — given years of experience, Epsilon offers recommendations, and robust measurements to help their clients achieve business goals.

Kobie Loyalty Cloud

“Easy to use customer loyalty program. Makes managing loyalty accounts easy.” — Anonymous via G2

Kobie Loyalty Cloud is a global loyalty marketing platform that focuses on delivering end-to-end loyalty solutions. Their loyalty logic is built around Kobie Alchemy® X, a next-gen loyalty platform. Interestingly, the Alchemy X loyalty engine requires no custom development thanks to easy-to-set rules and logic. Kobie positions itself as an opposite of an outsourcing agency; instead, they offer clients a full-service team to deliver the best results.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Creative capabilities — besides maintaining the logic behind the program, Kobie can outsource creative talent including copywriting, graphic design, or video production.
• AI & machine learning — Kobie applies AI to deliver data-driven and actionable tips to users on how to generate even more value with the loyalty program.
• Cloud-based architecture — with robust built, Alchemy X can handle traffic peaks with auto-scaling and self-healing options.

Fielo

“We implemented Fielo combos with specific requirements from the business needs such as combining many types of product combos to receive some rewards. We are very pleased with the tool and with the service provided for the consultant. Fielo provided all the help we needed and we are very satisfied.” — Larissa Okumura via Salesforce Appexchange

Fielo is a Salesforce-native loyalty and incentive automation platform that allows organizations to design and scale loyalty programs for B2B partners, customers, and employees. With an impressive client portfolio (Google, Burger King, ArcelorMittal), Fielo is another heavy-weight player on the market of end-to-end loyalty solutions. Thanks to their Behavior Engine, segmentation capabilities, and Points Engine, Fielo is ready to handle almost any loyalty scenario. Their pricing starts at $2.5 USD per user per month.

Enterprise features highlights:

• API access — Fielo offers open API for data and 3rd party tools integration.
• Quickstart — 10 pre-configured incentive programs for faster implementation and inspiration.
• Solid architecture — Fielo Salesforce-native architecture means that customers can leverage Salesforce’s security, scalability, and identity management out of the box.

Cheetah Digital Loyalty

“Thanks to Cheetah Loyalty we’re now able to quickly evolve historical campaigns to make them fresh and new and are successfully meeting all of the requirements and expectations of our guests on the loyalty program front.” — Jason Siska, Director of Loyalty & CRM, Craftworks”

Cheetah Digital offers a suite of marketer-oriented engagement solutions with experiences, messaging, personalization, and loyalty modules. The platform allows, among others, for real-time program monitoring thanks to pulling data from multiple sources, flexible tiers and milestones modeling, and custom mobile app development.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Industry-leading security — Cheetah Digital ensures the security of the program with data encryption, strict security standards, and compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, CCPA, and GDPR.
• Offer management module — users can quickly create, target, and personalize offers at scale.

AnnexCloud Loyalty Experience Solution

“Our loyalty integration is more complex than most, but Annex Cloud was great about working through our challenges. — Anonymous via G2

AnnexCloud is a loyalty solution with referral, UGC, and gamification modules. It offers access to open API and 100+ integrations that can extend the program core functionality and integrate with external tools. AnnexCloud provides a dashboard for running and monitoring the program. However, as noted by some user reviews online, the implementation of the platform may be resource-intensive, especially for less experienced development teams.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Modularity — users can incrementally add more modules to their program without significant upfront costs and long implementation time.
• Loyalty AI & data management — AnnexCloud offers automatic segmentation, smart recommendations, and real-time personalization based on consumer signals.
• Advanced configuration — with AnnexCloud, users can set up custom reward actions, gamified tiers, custom points expiration policies, and any rewards (which can also be generated within AnnexCloud thanks to their internal coupon system).

Emarsys

“My advice would be to keep in mind that this is a complete solution that helps you across all marketing channels. You have a lot of ways to get insights into your customers’ journey, aggregate this data and have API access to it.” — Johnny N. via G2

Emarsys (part of SAP corporation) is an omnichannel customer engagement platform that besides a loyalty module, offers a personalization engine allowing users to incorporate their loyalty strategies into any relevant communication channel, touchpoint, or device. Emarsys loyalty module is best utilized in connection with other SAP services for complete customer journey monitoring.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Complete data ownership — if you operate on other Emarsys systems and add loyalty on top, you can gain deep customer insights beyond transaction history.
• Actionable tactics — Emarsys loyalty dashboard offers ready loyalty tactics to achieve different business goals.
• SAP Commerce Cloud — users can automatically synchronize customers, events, and products with Emarsys to unlock sophisticated tactics, smart segmentation, and real-time personalization.

Antavo

“We were searching for a loyalty program in order to differentiate ourselves from the competition. Antavo fills the bill to a tee. It can be customized and fits with the aesthetic of our website too.” — Shana L. via Capterra

Antavo is an API-centric loyalty platform with quick POS integration and tenant management functionality to power omnichannel retention strategies for e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses. Unlike monolithic providers, Antavo provides a SaaS platform with white-label mobile apps, SDKs & APIs for quicker time-to-market.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Rewards personalization — users can assign a tag to each customer based on activity and purchase history. Then, use these tags to target various segments with specific rewards.
• In-store focus — Antavo offers a variety of in-store technologies, including mobile wallets and loyalty experience kiosks.
• Multi-region focus — Antavo clients can customize their loyalty logic to match the KPIs and market readiness of each region.

Headless Loyalty Engines

“Headless loyalty software is an API-first loyalty platform that enables any software application to integrate loyalty functionality via API. Headless loyalty software has mostly backend functions and is designed to process any type of loyalty transaction in a manner that is decoupled from the frontend, customer-facing environment.” — MACH Alliance

While 2021 saw a considerable uptake in headless SaaS adoption among global enterprises, 2023 is predicted to be the year when the headless approach goes mainstream. Accelerated by the belief that enterprises can only innovate if they are based on a modular architecture where each element can be quickly plugged in and out, the headless SaaS loyalty solutions are here to stay.

“Traditional loyalty platforms tend to be all-in-one, monolithic software. Sure, they have tons of features. However, there’s a catch. You’re losing the business flexibility, are dependent on one vendor, and need to adjust the vision of your loyalty marketing strategy to what’s possible in that heavy platform.” — Open Loyalty

As independent software vendors are breaking into the closed enterprise market, global businesses are beginning to feel the difference. Contrary to traditional enterprise software, headless SaaS loyalty solutions are based on an open web architecture that allows vendors to introduce new features faster and build a new reality where costly and delayed upgrades are a thing of the past. Headless loyalty solutions offer several game-changing benefits for enterprises that are difficult to overlook:

• Deployment speed (due to the backend and frontend separation).
• Limited capital expense.
• Lower TCOs & attractive pricing models*.

* The price difference is a massive differentiator for headless SaaS providers. Headless solutions usually cost up to EUR 5 000 per month (depending on the scale and custom needs), whereas monolithic vendors tend to offer fixed agreements that could cost up to hundreds of thousands of euros and more.

Here are some of the SaaS companies that are disrupting the enterprise-first loyalty market today:

Voucherify Promotion Engine

“The customisability of the API and its rich documentation conquered the development team literally. The API is modern and documented in much detail, being a perfect companion to the dashboard offered. The metadata and its reachability in queries provide a great way to boost customization of various business rules applying to our product offerings.” — Andreea T. via Capterra

Voucherify is the first MACH-certified, API-first loyalty software that, thanks to its modular approach, allows users to build a loyalty program with minimum upfront integration. The flexible data model can be extended with custom objects (metadata) and events allowing users to set up any reward action, program level, reward (both digital and physical), and segment program members with custom filters.

Voucherify loyalty module offers hundreds of features, allowing Enterprise clients to roll out loyalty programs faster, without large upfront costs. Add to that currency-agnostic REST API, guaranteed platform stability, custom deployments, dynamic roadmap, and you get a powerful API-driven loyalty engine suited to the needs of the most demanding global enterprise buyers.

Enterprise features highlights:

• All-in-one promotion engine — besides a loyalty module, Voucherify supports other types of promotional campaigns, making it a hub for all promotion-related activities.
• Attractive pricing model — unlike traditional loyalty providers, Voucherify does not charge you for the number of processed transactions. You get to pay for your API usage instead of paying extra for features you don’t need. Additionally, Voucherify is the only enterprise loyalty software with advanced testing possibilities — it provides a 30-day free trial, free plan, Sandbox project, and all features available straight away.
• Well-documented API — Voucherify API is built with developer-friendliness in mind. It is ready to cover the whole customer journey to enable the fastest possible time to market.
• Powerful CRM capabilities — Voucherify offers complex segmentation mechanisms and filters that allow users to target fine-grained customer segments with relevant loyalty rewards.

Talon.One

“Talon.One is a very flexible tool when it comes to building promotions and loyalty services for our clients. It integrates easily with the basket and checkout in a headless manner.” — Rex B. via Capterra

Talon.One is a headless promotion engine with a loyalty module. Talon.One follows the headless model, allowing users to extend and customize program rules, rewards, and tiers with custom fields and actions. Once integrated, Talon.One will enable users to launch and manage campaigns using the UI and get real-time access to any data related to the loyalty program via API.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Extended support — Talon.One’s support team is known to be quite knowledgeable and helpful with custom deployments.
• More campaign types — similar to Voucherify, Talon.One also offers discounts, referrals, and product bundles that can be easily incorporated into the loyalty program for maximum engagement.

White Label Loyalty

“Flexible, modular solution that fits my company’s needs and an out-of-the-box solution that is branded to our needs” — Phil G. via Capterra

White Label Loyalty is a complete loyalty and marketing platform that can serve as an end-to-end marketing solution or power the rest of the stack with loyalty. The core of White Label Loyalty is their Loyalty Engine, an event-based platform that is responsible for the program logic. Thanks to event-based architecture, the system is ready to reward any high-value brand interaction, and with the rewards API, the system can offer third-party rewards.

Enterprise features highlights:

• AI module — with White Label Loyalty’s AI, users can personalize the loyalty program based on customers’ predicted value and churn probability. On top of that, the system can capture high-value interaction to discover the most cost-efficient customer retention strategy.
• Progressive web & mobile apps — White Label Loyalty offers ready solutions for customer interface for both web and mobile.
• Receipt scanning technology — White Label Loyalty uses intelligent computer vision powered by machine learning to capture transaction data from any receipt.

Open Loyalty

“We decided to use Open Loyalty because of an Open Source architecture, a rich set of loyalty features available out of the box, great technical, and development support in our projects.” — Nathan Anderson, CEO of Scan Trust

Open Loyalty is the product of Divante, a well-established e-commerce software house. With a flexible set of over 50 API-based building blocks, enterprises can quickly build personalized reward programs by picking and choosing what loyalty features they need. To guarantee cost-effective scalability, Open Loyalty is built on top of the API, not the other way around.

Enterprise features highlights:

• Pre-built accelerator projects — Open Loyalty provides ready loyalty projects that may speed up the implementation or be used to build a PoC.
• SaaS and on-premise — Open Loyalty is available both as a SaaS and on-premise solution.
• Open-source — Enterprise clients get full access to the source code.

Summary

With the market full of alternatives, enterprise buyers are overwhelmed with the number of comparisons they need to make. Enterprises can either go with the traditional on-premise or dedicated cloud model, which allows for a lot of customization, but at a steep price. Or they can choose one of the headless solutions that are not only much more affordable but also easier to mix and match to give enterprises enough flexibility to respond to new challenges.

As reported by MACH, with a headless loyalty platform, enterprises gain a lot of agility. If the program logic has to be changed, users can do so with a few clicks on a dashboard or several requests to the API. There is no need to wait for another release round or version upgrade. Now, such agility is a competitive advantage. But in the future, it will be the baseline.

Originally published at https://www.voucherify.io.